


Love Love Love

by EliotRosewater



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: All the Red Room Things, Ambiguous Relationships, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, F/M, Female Friendship, Forced Prostitution, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Objectification, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Red Room (Marvel), Romance, Stand Alone, Strong Language, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23247496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EliotRosewater/pseuds/EliotRosewater
Summary: "Going after him is a dead end. I know. I've tried."For more than one reason: Glimpse of the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier's overlapping time in the Red Room.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	Love Love Love

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally published 07 November 2016. There have been minor edits in this revision. 
> 
> There are several instances of referenced rape/non-consensual sex in this work. None of the instances are graphic. Still: beware.

_Snow was falling in Kārsava, Latvia. Natasha could have turned up the heat, but she chose instead to pull the blankets tighter around her shoulders. They were red and ostensibly plush. Natasha's fingertips raced each other through the fibres. Snow had built halfway up the window, making it appear as though she were sinking into the ground. Her breath condensed into a cloud when she exhaled._

_One hand still waded into the red folds of fabric, but she pulled the other one back. Natasha traced her bottom lip with the pad of her thumb and closed her eyes._

* * *

Water crushed down on Natasha and the Winter Soldier. Her ears were begging for relief she couldn't give them. But she didn't panic; she held the regulator out to him. He took it and breathed in deep. Through the blur of water over her eyes, she watched the motion of his chest. The Soldier passed the regulator back to Natasha; she was the keeper of their shared breath.

The Soldier dove down and down until she couldn't see anything but blackness. Without his indistinct silhouette for company, the water pressure felt more intense. He was gone for so long — even for _him_ it was a long time to go between breaths — that she expected his dead body would bump into her any second. Natasha hardly had time to laugh at the image her head had conjured, because she was pulled urgently downward. The feeling was so strange, her and all that water rushing down. She felt like she was being flushed down a toilet for shit humans.

She was pushed through a ragged hole in the wall. The edges of the wall were tinged red even with water rushing over it. Carried by the current, she was flushed from the tank. It left her on her front beside the Soldier. His hair was plastered to his face, long slashes down his flesh arm. His sleeve was ribbons. He was a bleeding tiger. She watched him pick fibreglass out from between the plates of his prosthesis. Both of their chests heaved, but the Soldier looked considerably less ruffled.

"Well done," a handler said. She couldn't tell see who'd said it, but she knew it wasn't one of his.

Natasha relieved herself of the breathing tank on her back. A technician took it from her and the handler offered to help her up. She accepted. No one told the Winter Soldier he'd done a good job. No one offered him a hand up. Natasha didn't. He got up and gestured with two of his mechanical fingers. One of his technicians approached, and the Soldier held out his flesh hand. From a distance, Natasha could see the depth of the cuts and the shards of the tank wall. Blood pooled in his palm. Calm as ever, the technician and the Soldier left the room, probably headed for medical. Natasha thought they would have fun picking invisible slivers of fibreglass out of rapidly healing flesh.

"What do you think?" one of the Soldier's handlers asked Natasha. Her own handler looked at her expectantly. He wanted to know her answer.

She looked at her handler. Water was still running off of her. Perhaps she should have been grateful that it was _only_ water.

Natasha said, "What else does he do?"

Her handler broke out into a smile and laughed. He turned and offered a hand to the American handler that commanded the Soldier. "I think we have a deal!" he said.

* * *

_Her eyes peeled opened. Natasha dropped her hand from her lip. For a moment, she thought she'd felt her skin damp and dripping. It made her shiver. So she flopped onto her back and rolled herself tightly into her blankets. If she tried hard enough, she could trick herself. She could convince herself those were arms around neck and not just dead blankets._

* * *

The metal was crushing her throat. She struggled. She tried to do what she'd been taught, but her windpipe was going to be flattened inside her. The walls dimmed around her. Natasha gritted her teeth and slapped pathetically at the metal arm around her neck. The pressure was gone the next instant. Natasha staggered forward a few steps and made a point not to rub her throat.

"What'd she do wrong?" the Winter Soldier asked.

Natasha looked at the audience: almost thirty girls and women between the ages of twelve and twenty. It was a hive of juvenile Black Widows; a few of them, like herself, were on the edge of earning their title. It was for them that the Soldier was even here. But they'd put some of the most promising young spiders into the training module, too. The Red Room wanted to get their money's worth from their Winter Soldier rental.

"She panicked when her first two escape methods failed," Yelena said. She made a face at Natasha.

"Right," the Soldier said. His voice was flat. There was an ever-growing pool of spare change and stolen notes going for whoever could elicit a spontaneous response from the Soldier first. "What should she have done?"

Yelena's face withered.

The Soldier said, "Don't say what's wrong unless you know what's right."

He'd never chastised anyone before. Natasha went to her place beside Yelena as the Soldier called forward a group of the young ones.

"I wasn't panicking," she said to Yelena.

"You were. Don't worry. It's a perfectly normal reaction when he has that arm around you . . ." she trailed off and did something with her eyebrows.

Natasha laughed. "Oh, yes. It's the most romantic thing, a metal arm crushing your windpipe."

"Forget romance — it's erotic. I bet he's into it."

Natasha's face contracted. "I don't think he's capable of being _into_ anything."

Yelena rolled her eyes. "You saw Madam Anisimova take him upstairs last night. Who knows what they got up to? You know the type of woman she is, and _his arm_."

"Are you going to seduce your teacher, Lena? It'd be very cliché of you."

"There's nothing wrong with clichés."

Natasha sat back and rubbed at her throat, finally. The Soldier was showing the twelve- and thirteen-year olds how to break the hold of someone attacking from behind. No one would ever be able to make that metal elbow give out if the Soldier didn't want it to, so the girls practised on one another. There was an odd one out, and she played a sparring game with the Soldier until it was time to rotate partners.

"Well, good luck," Natasha said.

"I'll tell you all about it, and then you can decide if you want to take dear old Winter for a ride."

Natasha made a non-committal sound in the back of her throat. It hurt, that damn arm.

"You don't fool anyone, Tasha. You stare at him."

"We're meant to observe him. That's why he's here. For us to learn."

"Observe! You _stare_ at him."

Natasha knew a futile conversation when she heard one. So she shook her head and rolled her eyes.

Yelena sat back and bumped her shoulder against Natasha's. "He stares at you, too."

It just went to show how undisciplined Natasha was becoming when her eyes went right to the Soldier as if he'd be looking at her right then.

Yelena noticed, of course — she was one of the front runners of the class _because_ she noticed everything — and laughed. "He's probably got that red hair fetish. I've never met a man who _didn't_."

"You should dye yours," Natasha said. "And I'll go blonde. Maybe we'll confuse him."

They laughed together and watched their fellow spiders train, taking turns with the Soldier. Natasha and Yelena helped the younger ones stretch out while making increasingly ludicrous postulations about the Winter Soldier's sexual preferences. Natasha won the pool on the Soldier when she made a comment about his tactical pants at the same time that the noise died down in the room. The Soldier's cheeks went pink, and Yelena's laughter echoed off the walls. The younger ones giggled, knowing they didn't get the full joke.

* * *

_She kept her eyes closed, kept the blanket around her neck. A smile was tugging on her lips, but Natasha held back. In the cocoon, her exhale came out a warm cloud, little droplets warming her face. Warm here; snow outside the window. A shiver danced down her spine._

* * *

The metal was crushing her throat. Natasha kicked, but he spun — with her pinned to his front — out of range. She twisted but it just pinched the soft skin of her neck between the plates of metal. When her vision tunnelled, Natasha resigned herself and tapped on the metal arm. On the second tap, her hand lingered, curled around the forearm.

The pressure on her throat was immediately relieved but the metal lingered, too. She could breathe, but the arm held her solidly to the Winter Soldier's chest. It was like a hug. Natasha made her hand drop. The Soldier's arm disappeared from around her. She went back to her place in the class. Yelena passed her along the way. By the time she sat down, Yelena and the Soldier had started their spar.

Natasha kept her eyes on the spar but she wasn't seeing it. The youngest one, Anna, tapped her, and automatically Natasha started braiding the younger one's hair, still absent in her head.

A loud slapping sound finally brought her back to the present. On the training mat, Yelena was on her back, pinned.

"What'd she do wrong?" the Soldier said. He was still pinning Yelena, his back to the rest of them.

Anna said, "Too defensive. She needs to know when to go on the offensive. She's afraid of hurting herself hitting you."

"Right." The Soldier let go of Yelena and stood up. She pushed herself up and stood as well. He said, "The best offence is a good offence. Don't stay defensive unless it's absolutely necessary."

The Soldier made a short gesture that was meant to tell Yelena to sit.

"Good lesson, professor," Yelena said, tapping the Soldier's ass.

In a blur of silver, the Soldier turned and caught Yelena's throat in his metal hand. The room froze — except for Yelena. She turned into the Soldier's arm. Her elbow caught his jaw and her foot kicked the back of his knee. The angle was awkward. The Soldier staggered and Yelena got free.

"What'd she do right?" Yelena asked the girls.

"Elicited an emotional response," Natasha said.

Yelena smirked at her as she went to her seat. She sat and the Soldier was just righting himself when the door opened. It was a group of handlers and expensive-looking strangers. They took in the room and then smiled. There was only one reason why people like this ever turned up during training.

"Soldier," the handler called Bezukhov said. "Who is the best in class?"

The Soldier looked immediately at Natasha. She stared back, cool and blank. He lifted a finger and pointed. He said, "Yelena."

Beside her, Yelena said under her breath, "Bastard."

Bezukhov smiled and held his arms out. "Miss Belova, with us please."

"My pleasure," she said in a voice that wasn't hers. Yelena used the old ballet training to float across the training room. Bezukhov put a hand on the small of her back when she reached them. The door fell closed after the group of them left.

The Soldier turned back to them. He and Natasha stared at each other for a moment before he looked at all of them.

"Escaping from a vulnerable position," the Solider said.

Yelena couldn't participate in training the next day. There was a note from the infirmary and everything — as if the Soldier were concerned with _attendance_. But the note was more for the handlers than the Soldier. He just blinked at Yelena and asked if she would help him with the younger ones.

She and Natasha stretched out the young ones. They pushed on legs until it made their little spines pop. It was offence today. Faux Widow's Bites weighed on everyone's wrists, except for Yelena. The girls scuttled around the Soldier as he parried their blows; the ultimate goal was to touch the faux Bite to his neck. Bonus points if it was done from above. (It was fun until the game was interrupted by the handlers taking Stasia away.) The closest anyone got was his flesh forearm. The Soldier smiled at the one that did it — fifteen-year old Maya.

He said, "Good. Very good."

Natasha went last. It was unlikely that the Soldier was tired, but she had the advantage in him having already fought twenty-odd girls. Natasha's spar lasted five minutes, which was two minutes longer than any other. She didn't get his neck; she got him in the oblique — at the cost of what would have been a broken knee cap were this not a spar.

"Not bad," he told her.

She had wanted to beat him so _badly_.

The next week, training was interrupted by handlers again, but this time the Soldier's people were there, too. Natasha had never seen a stiffer posture than she did when the Soldier saw _his_ handlers.

"Who's the best in class, Soldier?" one — an American — asked.

The Soldier looked immediately at Natasha just like he had the last time someone had asked. He pointed to Yelena.

"Then come on, the two of you. I've got a job for you," the American said.

For the three days that the Soldier and Yelena were away, the handlers had Natasha lead ballet for the others. Some of them really needed the refresher. They'd lost the discipline and fundamentals. Training resumed the morning after the Soldier and Yelena returned.

"Was it everything you dreamed it would be?" Natasha asked while they stretched.

She said, "He's a bit strange." Shrugging, she added, "He doesn't eat or sleep."

"He has to eat," Natasha said.

"He only drank water, coffee, and vodka. For _three days_."

"All at the same time?"

Yelena shoved her and laughed. "No. Not all at the same time." She reached out and gripped her insteps, pressed her forehead to her knees. Turning in Natasha's direction, Yelena added, "I did some poking around."

"In what?" Natasha mirrored Yelena's pose.

"The documents about him. The Red Room's contract with Winter's . . . parent company."

"You mean he's not an independent contractor?" That time Natasha was able to dodge Yelena's swat. "Find anything interesting?"

"A whole slew of tests that the Red Room demanded be done on Winter before they paid for him. They made damn sure he couldn't procreate. I guess they wanted to keep the monster population under control."

Natasha's face spasmed. "They _castrated_ him?" She shot a glance at the Soldier.

"No," Yelena said with a sideways glance at her. "I don't know. Maybe chemically. He's definitely not _physically_ castrated."

Natasha gave Yelena a _look_. "Don't you need permission to do that sort of thing?"

"He didn't say no."

"Fucking hell, Lena."

"I think he owed me one after he picked me to entertain those perverts."

"He didn't know what they were asking him to do."

"Oh, please, Tasha. He knew. He's been the entertainment, too. I could tell. He knew."

They'd all been the entertainment. There was a whole training module on it that began on a spider's fifteenth birthday. Natasha knew all the ways to give. She knew how to take and to pretend to take. The instructors never needed to teach her — or any of the spiders — how to create a place to go to in her head. That came naturally sometime between the second and seventh time. It was too easy, now, to turn on the autopilot and check out until it was over.

Had the Soldier knowingly sent Yelena there? Did he have a choice? Had Yelena deliberately (vengefully) sent the Soldier there.

It didn't matter, Natasha decided.

"You must really be growing on him," Natasha said.

* * *

_Outside her window, there was a child playing in the snow and shouting with glee. Natasha pulled the blanket tighter around herself. She made her cocoon a straitjacket. She closed her eyes as hard as she could._

* * *

The handler interrupted a one-on-two demonstration the Soldier was doing with Natasha and Yelena. (Natasha realised he hadn't even been _trying_ before now.)

"Soldier," said Bezukhov. "Who is the youngest in class?"

The room was quieter than the deepest bowels of outer space. The Soldier stared at Bezukhov.

"Soldier, who is it?" Bezukhov smiled at the man behind him in attempt to hide the disobedience. "Soldier, are you alright? Shall I call your technician?"

Natasha watched the stiffness steal over the Soldier's back. Like frost over a window. Steeling himself. He lifted a finger at Anna.

"She's twelve," Yelena said. The outrage was clear on her face, but she managed to keep it out of her voice. "She hasn't gone — she's _twelve_."

Bezukhov ignored Yelena. He waved Anna over and smiled like he was Father Christmas, promising Anna gifts and sweets.

Anna walked forward. All the spiders touched her back as she went by. The number of years — of individual _times_ that Natasha had braided Anna's golden hair!

Natasha touched Anna's shoulder and said, "You come find me tonight, if you need me. Or I'll come to you."

After they'd gone, the Soldier said, "Natalia will lead you in acrobatics." Then he went to his place along the wall and sat there. He stared into oblivion while the rest of them flipped and contorted their bodies.

Natasha couldn't find Anna that night. No one could, not until they went to training the next morning. She was sat on the mat in the centre of the room, laughing, while the Soldier braided her hair into an intricate crown. Anna's face was swollen a little. It went well with the redness in her eyes.

She turned to face the Soldier when he finished the last braid. Her little hands cautiously touched the sides of her hair. With her eyes on the mirror that made up an entire wall, she said, "Where'd you learn to do this?"

The Soldier arched his eyebrows and said, "It's a secret."

"Liar."

He pushed his nose up so that it resembled a pig's snout. "Go on," he said and gestured toward the benches. "Sit down. You're just observing today."

Anna's smile fell a little, but she went and sat.

Once he regained his feet, the Soldier said, "Today we're fighting with partners with a shared weapon."

Natasha slipped her arm through Yelena's, locking them at the elbow. "Dibs on the best one in class," she said.

There may have been a little knowing smirk on the Soldier's face, but it was gone before Natasha could be sure it had been there.

* * *

_Part of her wanted to get up and carry on. It was used to being in motion and working. The new viscous part of her denied movement. So she lay there and breathed. It was a dreading sort of feeling. She could stay here until she died. Be nothing but a dry and brittle husk wrapped up tight in lying blankets. She could. She could get up, too._

* * *

"Get up," Natasha said. "You're going to spar with me."

The Soldier stared up at her with the stupidest look on his face. All this trouble she went through to find where they put him at night, and he was just going to stare at her like some moon-faced kid.

"Get up," she said.

The Soldier blinked some more. But then he pushed himself up off the concrete floor he had been sitting on. Natasha led him through the halls and to the training room.

"Do you need to warm up?" Natasha said while she threw down her sweater.

"No," the Soldier said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, I'm going to take a few minutes." Natasha was not overly-proud. She knew what she was and what she wasn't. She wasn't good enough to best the Soldier cold. So she sat and stretched until every last joint popped and cracked.

The Soldier sat on the ground beside her like he didn't have anything better to do. "No one told me about this."

"I just did," Natasha said.

"I'm not allowed to give private lessons without supervision."

"Wouldn't be a private lesson if a supervisor were there, would it?"

"I don't suppose so."

"I'm sure this is fine."

He stayed quiet while she finished stretching. When she got up, so did he. Natasha took stock of what he was wearing for the first time. Black sleeveless tank. Black shorts that looked like they might be made of linen. Bare feet. She was struck by the sheer amount of flesh that was visible. His skin was so pale, especially when contrasted with the black.

"Don't you get cold in that?" There wasn't any bedding in the room she'd found him in.

The Soldier shrugged. "It is sufficient."

"Do you eat?"

"What?"

"Eat. Do you do it?"

"Of course."

"I knew Yelena was lying."

The Soldier almost smiled. "I do not eat on short missions."

"Why not?"

"Unfortunate tendency to vomit. Just easier when it's only fluids."

Natasha made a face and nodded her head a little. "Is the vodka better going down or coming up?"

That _was_ a smile. "The burn's great either way."

She let herself laugh like a chiming bell and then she slapped his face. The spar was on. Natasha wasn't stupid, so she didn't expect to win the first round. She just wanted to get a feel for him when he was on his own, without an audience to educate. The most obvious thing: He made her move. He didn't give any ground; he just pivoted in the same place. For all his talk about having a good offence, he stayed defensive the whole time.

"What's your problem?" she said, stopping abruptly.

The Soldier assumed a casual posture. "I don't understand."

"You won't fight me."

"What?"

"You're just blocking. Fight."

The Soldier looked hopeless. "I'm not supposed to hurt the students."

If it were anyone else, that would have been trash talk. From the Soldier, it was just sad. "You won't hurt me."

"Yes, I will."

"Then consider this my waiver."

He shook his head. "I can't hurt the students."

"You grabbed Yelena by the throat when she slapped your ass. Is that what it takes to get you to _fight_?"

His eyes dropped immediately to the floor. Natasha was utterly perplexed. So she punched him in the face. The metal arm shot out reflexively, but she was ready for it. She caught it and used it as leverage to swing up onto his shoulders. She held her wrist to his neck.

"Got you," she said.

The Soldier looked up at her through his eyelashes. His cheeks were squished together by her thighs. "You got me," he said.

She twisted around so that she could back handspring off his back. Like a good fighter, he turned to keep her in front of him.

"Fight me," she said.

"OK," he said.

The fight lasted less than two minutes. She was pinned against a wall with one arm twisted behind her. The metal hand was on the side of her head, holding the other side of her face to the wall.

"Got you," the Soldier said.

"You got me," Natasha said.

Three more spars and three more decisive victories to the Soldier. To her credit, they lasted significantly longer each successive time. After picking herself up off the floor, Natasha said, "That's enough for tonight."

The Soldier leaned away and sat next to her. He was sweating, she noted.

"Am I getting better?" she said.

"I'm getting worse," he said.

Natasha laughed and his lips bent like he would have liked to join in. She folded herself over her legs, stretching the aching muscles in her legs. At her ankles, her wrists crossed. Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha watched the Soldier reach out and touch her hair with his right hand. The touch just barely made her hair shift, but he retracted right away.

"I need to get back," he said.

But he didn't get up.

"I'll walk with you," Natasha said. With that, she popped to her feet and collected her sweater. It felt cold when she put it on.

Together they walked through the halls and into the bowels of the facility. Natasha stood outside the door to the Soldier's quarters (if they could be called that). He stopped and looked at a spot just over her shoulder. They both deliberately fought the urge to fidget. Natasha didn't know what she was waiting for.

The Soldier cleared his throat and said, "Good night."

"See you later," she said.

Training went on as usual the next day. They did more partner work. It was normal, even when the handlers came and took Olga. The Soldier made a grumpy face at Bezukhov's back. A few of the girls heard the Soldier mumble, "Am I training assassins or prostitutes?"

"The two aren't mutually exclusive," Yelena said and clapped the Soldier on the shoulder.

Natasha laughed with the other older girls. The twelve-year olds didn't laugh, especially not Anna. But anyone over fifteen laughed, Soldier included.

His face bent in such a human way. "Save the prostitution for when you're off the clock, OK?" He looked surprised that he'd said it. Horrified with himself even.

But the girls laughed again and went back to their drilling. Natasha bumped the Soldier with her hip. "It's fine," she said. "If we don't laugh, we die."

"Yeah," he said flatly.

That night, Natasha went to get the Soldier, and she brought him back to the training room. He got up right away that time, almost as if he'd been waiting for her. No persuasion was needed on her part, and he didn't say anything about not being allowed to do "private lessons."

As she was stretching — he just sat there beside her — the Soldier said, "May I make a suggestion?"

"Hm?"

"I was thinking—"

"That's dangerous."

" _I was thinking_ that we could try an evasion exercise."

Natasha sat up from her pike's stretch. "Elaborate."

"I'll pursue. You evade for as long as you can."

"I need to fight, not run away."

"Trust me."

"Trust you?"

"Trust me, Natalia." The skin between his brows pinched together. "I think — I think I learned a lot about fighting by trying to run away."

"OK."

When they stood on opposite sides of the training room, the Soldier said, "Don't think of it as running. Just evade me."

Natasha nodded her head. She marked the room and then looked back at the Soldier. "OK."

He moved laterally. She strung together a cartwheel-round off-back handspring across the centre of the room. Don't think of it as running, he'd said. She thought of it as dancing. _Swan Lake_ Act IV, No. 29 Scène Finale played in her head. Natasha had been the best in class when they did _Swan Lake_ ; her technique was second to none. Maybe it would work here, too. Fighting the Soldier hadn't worked for her. Maybe evading him — _dancing_ with him would do the trick.

For the most part, it worked. If she pretended he wasn't there, it was OK. If she played the part of Odette and pretended he was Von Rothbart, it was better. But if she was Odile playing coy with Prince Siegfried, it was perfect — she shouldn't have picked the finale to play in her head.

Natasha floated and leaped across the room. She turned on her toes, long strides in between. She never let Prince Siegfried box her into a corner. When he pursued her across the room, she'd stick the landing and bend at the waist so that his arms sailed right over her. Backpedalling, she was free to turn and leap again.

The exercise ended when the Soldier plucked her from the air during a _grand jeté_. His hands went exactly where they were supposed to go during a lift. Steady hands at her waist guided her down and placed her on the ground in _demi-pointe_. Natasha did a few turns while his hands guided her before she bent dramatically backwards like a dead thing. In her head, Odette and Siegfried had just risen. Breathing wasn't easy, bent as she was, but she held the posture.

"Impressive," the Soldier said.

Natasha straightened up and smiled. His hands were on her waist still; their chests touched. "I let you catch me."

"Did you," he said with a tone of disbelief.

"I did." She put her hands on his forearms. One was warm and sticky with sweat. The other was just a few degrees cooler than the air temperature. "They taught you ballet?"

The Soldier nodded. "Some." He jerked his chin at his metal arm. "Had to relearn how to balance myself."

Natasha looked at the metal arm. She ran her fingers down the biceps and gently pressed her fingernails between the plates. Through her lashes, she looked at his eyes — not _him_ , just his eyes — and said, "Does this hurt?"

"No."

He wasn't lying.

"Can you feel it?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"How," she said.

"I won't be able to explain it properly."

"Try."

"I don't know the technical words for any of it."

"Do your best."

"Sensors tell me what's going on. I feel the impulse from the sensor. It sends a message from the arm to my brain through the nervous system. But I don't feel the true stimulus."

"So if your arm's in a furnace, the sensors send a zap through your nerves that tells your brain that it's hot. But you don't actually feel the heat."

"More or less."

"Interesting."

The Soldier shifted the plates under Natasha's hands. The control he had over the arm was _that_ fine; he had it down to a single plate. He said, "There are pain responses. It'll send current into the body if something's in dire need of repair."

"If something is in dire need of repair, putting you in pain doesn't seem like the most helpful thing to do."

"It's had its uses."

"Like when?" Natasha said with amused disbelief.

Their faces were so close. They breathed each other in.

"Usually, if the arm is in that bad of shape, the rest of the body is even worse off. The impulse hurts, but it works like a pacemaker; it keeps my heart rate stable until help can arrive."

Fascinating. The levels of torture and usefulness that the arm possessed. It was nearly human in the worst possible ways. She ran an appreciative hand over the plates again, her nails snagging at every edge just a bit.

With an eyebrow raised, she said, "Did it sense that?"

"Yes," he said breathily.

Natasha did the same motion down his flesh arm. "How different does that feel?"

"Very different."

"How _much_ different?"

"The difference between talking on the telephone and talking in person."

With that, she stepped out of his arms where she could breathe her own air.

* * *

_Eyes opened, Natasha rolled onto her back and stared at the exposed beams of the ceiling. Everything in the room had some form of wooden detail. A theme wasn't worth all that wood, she thought. Sure the antlers mounted to the wall and the glass jar of feathers matched well, but at what cost? The sanity of the inn's guests?_

_She knew she would get up soon._

* * *

A routine was established. Both of them were comfortable with it. There was training with everyone during the day, and then there was dancing together at night. Natasha could evade the Soldier for hours. She could get the faux Bite to his neck more than three-quarters of the time. The spar count had been nearly split, her winning as many as him. Once, the Soldier had come to training with all the girls the next morning with a bruise that _still_ hadn't faded.

"There's something going on," Yelena said.

"What do you mean?" Natasha played dumb, and Yelena knew she was doing it.

"You've gotten so much better."

"We've _all_ gotten better; don't sell yourself short, Lena."

Yelena made an offended noise. "You're up to something. Did you — Natasha, did you fuck the Winter Soldier?"

Natasha stared directly into Yelena's eyes in the way that made normal people squirm for the scrutiny; spiders like them were beyond bowing to those impulses. She said, "I have not fucked the Winter Soldier."

Disbelief was clear in Yelena's expression. "OK. Fine. I don't believe you, but, if you _are_ telling the truth, you're missing out."

"Valuable information, that is."

There was no time for a response; the doors opened on Bezukhov and a small band of visitors. He waved a bit at the girls and said, "I need to borrow Natalia for a bit, Soldier."

Electricity could have been crackling in the air.

The Soldier's back was to the room, but the tension was clear in his posture. He said, "She's not through here. She can go when training has adjourned for the day."

"You misunderstand," Bezukhov said, "I wasn't _asking_."

"I understand perfectly."

"How's your head today, Soldier? Maybe you have a bit of a headache left over from yesterday?"

"My head is fine. Now if you don't mind closing the door, I'm teaching a course right now."

There had never been a more violent shade of puce on a human's face. Bezukhov looked ready to explode. One doesn't act disobediently in front of him. They certainly don't _sass_ him.

Natasha got up and crossed the room before anyone could say anything more. Enough damage had already been done. Training would more than likely be cancelled for the rest of the week. Introducing herself with a smile to the band of strangers, Natasha gave Bezukhov her best placating look. Even if that exchange had no impact on the customers, it had been an insult to Bezukhov.

Later, Natasha lay in her bed. Yelena was a comfort beside her.

"They cancelled training almost as soon as you'd left," she said. "Winter's technician came and took him away. Bezukhov was shouting on the phone in the hallway. We think he was talking to Winter's people. I think they're going to re-negotiate his contract so that the Red Room can discipline him."

"You mean they can't already?" Natasha said.

"No. It's why they left those two technicians here. They're the only ones who can punish him. It was in the contract I looked through before they sent me on that mission with him."

"Hm."

"Hey, you alright? It always sucks when you get an entire group."

"It was fine. Most of them just wanted to watch."

Yelena put her arms around Natasha, resting her cheek on the top of Natasha's head. "Lucky."

"Could have been worse."

"Yeah."

The rest of the week was slow. Natasha taught the newest recruits about makeup and disguises as her body recovered from entertaining. Yelena taught the little ones accents and language. During the night, Natasha tried to go to the Soldier's cell (because that's what it was), but the hallways were crawling with guards. She could have killed them and gotten to the Soldier, but that wouldn't really get her anywhere.

The guards were gone one night — all of them simply vanished. Natasha would have thought it was a trap, but she knew the Red Room. They wouldn't pull their guards for a trap. It just meant that the Soldier's handlers were coming or that they were already there. Or the contract had been ironed out, and the Red Room had gotten what they wanted.

She stole down the hall and eased opened the Soldier's door. He didn't look up when he heard her approaching. He was sat against the wall opposite the door with his head drooping over his legs. Blue tinged his skin, usually pearly and glowing ghoulishly in the light of his cell.

"Soldier," she said. "Soldier, look at me."

His neck craned his head upward. He blinked at her, waiting.

"Spar with me."

"I'm not to leave here until morning."

"What happens in the morning?"

"Training resumes."

"Are your handlers coming?"

"No."

"Bezukhov kept you here?"

"It is within his rights to confine me to specific spaces."

"What did he have done to you?"

"Nothing that hasn't been done before."

"When does the confinement order expire?"

"Six hours ago."

"Come spar with me."

"I can't."

"Come spar with me."

He shook his head and looked down at his lap again.

Natasha crossed the threshold and crouched before the Soldier. She put a hand on his cheek until he looked at her. Deprivation, that was all. Natasha could see it clear as day, could feel it on the skin beneath her fingertips. Her thumb traced the ridge of delicate skin beneath his eye. The skin was purple and dark, dry and flat. Cold. He'd been denied food, water, sleep, a shirt (he still had those linen shorts), access to a toilet or bathing facilities (she could smell it), and who knew what else — maybe even all sensory stimulation for some time.

They'd all been there before.

"Come with me," she told him.

He rose to his feet when she rose to hers. Though his footfalls were heavier than ever before, he followed her through the hallways. Natasha brought him to a locker room that the oldest (therefore the fewest) spiders used. She turned on three shower heads and spun the handles so that the valves let in eighty percent hot water and twenty percent cold.

"Clean yourself up," she told the Soldier. "Take as long as you need."

No further prompting was necessary; he shed the shorts and went right for the water. Natasha sat on a bench and tried not to watch. His back was to her. He'd tipped his head back to let the shower rain on his face. When he'd had enough of that, his body sagged forward to the wall. It was then that Natasha chose to get up and go to her own locker in the room. She pulled a plastic cup from the locker and filled it with lukewarm water. To kill time, she did it a few more times, as well. If she looked in the mirror and tilted her head just so, Natasha could see the Soldier's shadow moving on the wall behind her. Slowness weighed on his every movement.

Natasha downed a cup of water and turned around. No hesitance in her stride, she walked right up to the Soldier, under the spray of the showerhead fully clothed. Alarm rose on his face with every step she took toward him.

She said, "Thank you for standing up to Bezukhov on my behalf. It was stupid of you; I wish you hadn't done it. But I know why you did it, and I want to thank you for it."

Water plastered both of their hair to their faces. There was hardly ten centimetres between their chests. Perhaps she should have taken her clothes off first.

"I know why you did it," she repeated.

Mouth falling open, the Soldier didn't say anything. Water collected at the edges of his mouth. He looked like a stupid fish.

"I would have done it for you, too," she said. Her eyelashes were heavy with droplets. "Soldier, who's the best in class?"

His eyes searched her face. Weighed down by slowness, the Soldier raised his hand, the flesh one. The motion was plagued by hesitance the whole way, but he reached toward her face. Two steps forward and one step back: the Soldier traced her bottom lip with his thumb.

"You are," he said.

At training the following morning, Natasha said to Yelena, "You were right about the Soldier not being castrated."

Yelena's laughter echoed off the walls, and it made everyone swing in their direction. They looked away after a minute. Yelena calmed down and said, "Finally got a look, did you?"

"I did."

In hindsight, she wished she hadn't.

* * *

_Natasha pressed her fingertips over her lips and sat up. Blankets pooled in the space where she'd been lying. She parted her lips beneath her fingers and exhaled. Another cloud formed._

_There was no sense in lying around._

_There was no sense in chasing the wind._

_There was no sense in trying to hold onto a cloud._

* * *

At the end of the training course, the Soldier took on each of the oldest spiders — five in total. They were why the Soldier was here, after all. The matches were somewhere between a true fight, a spar, and an exhibition. They were done in front of an audience of the entire enrolment of the Red Room, the handlers, interested potential contractors, and the Soldier's handlers. Natasha watched the face of the American one while the Soldier went through his matches with Yelena and Svetlana. Diana's was quick; there wasn't much time to watch.

Natasha was fourth in line. She entered the ring with the Soldier. The handlers gave him three knives. She got nothing but her Bites, the _real_ ones — she didn't need anything else. She was the best in the class.

For eleven minutes, she danced. When he caught her, she used his hands against him. She used his body like a playground, swinging around his shoulders with the leverage of his arms. She used the Widow's Bites as often as she could: the armpits, oblique, groin, the soft sides of joints — not the neck, not yet. For most of those eleven minutes, she had the upper hand. There were only a few tears in her uniform; his knife drew blood only three times.

At the end, he plucked her from the sky by her neck. The metal plates of his arm were crushing her windpipe. Natasha scraped at the metal arm at first. Her nails dug between the plates. The Soldier turned and pivoted to avoid her kicking feet.

Don't panic, he had said. Yelena had said it.

So Natasha didn't panic.

If there was one thing the Red Room had taught her, it was that sometimes you have to break off parts of yourself in order to survive.

She gripped the metal forearm with both hands and drew her knees up. She forced her feet down; they caught the toe of his boot. As soon as she felt the contact, she pulled her legs up and curled her back. She flipped from being pinned with her back to his chest to sitting on his shoulders. The motion was violent and it hurt — her neck was seared as she pulled it partially free from between the Soldier's arms. Her throat got crushed a little on the way out and there would definitely be a bruise on her cheek in a few hours. But she'd freed herself.

Up on his shoulders, she drove the Bites down hard into his neck. They both collapsed, but Natasha collapsed victoriously.

The audience clapped as the curtain inside her head closed; Odette and Prince Siegfried were rising. Natasha was on her feet and offered the Soldier a hand up. He accepted and rubbed at his neck. After acknowledging her audience — the Soldier's handlers didn't look particularly pleased — Natasha left the ring and went to sit with all the other Black Widow candidates that had already fought.

"Nicely done," Yelena said and squeezed Natasha's hand briefly.

"Thanks," she said, "you as well."

"Not as good as you."

There was no denying the truth of that statement, so Natasha didn't; she watched Galina face off with the Soldier. It lasted maybe three minutes before the Soldier displayed a decisive victory.

After an hour, they were all gathered in the ballroom, each dressed in gowns with their hair done up elaborately. Their wounds were expertly covered. The Soldier had his same tactical gear on. The handlers and customers were in suits and a few in tuxedos. Bezukhov stood on a dais with the Soldier's American handler and the Soldier himself.

Into a microphone, Bezukhov gave a long and boring speech about things he didn't mean. At the end, he said, "It is time to get an answer. Winter Soldier, who was the best in class?"

The microphone was held out toward the Soldier. A spotlight shined down on the five Black Widow candidates. From a distance, Natasha could see the scowl on the Soldier's face. He pointed at her. By doing so, he refused to speak.

Bezukhov pulled the microphone back to himself. "Is that Tasha you're pointing at?"

The Soldier nodded. His American handler didn't look pleased.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Bezukhov said, "graduating top of her class and earning the title of Black Widow: Natalia Alianovna Romanova."

The audience cheered and drank to her. Yelena hugged her and whispered nonsense words into Natasha's ear. It was all a show. Bezukhov called her to the front of the room so that they could all see her and shake her hand. Natasha smiled and acted the part. She let them kiss her cheeks and grab handfuls of her ass and chest. By all means, she looked excited to have gotten the title.

She danced with customers and potential contractors. As the night wore on, it became easier. The people were becoming drunker and drunker. Less and less sharp and observant. At a table, the American handler (who was quite sober) said to the stoic Soldier beside him, "Does alcohol affect you, Soldier?"

"In sufficient quantities consumed in narrow time frames."

"Drink this all in one go."

The Soldier took the bottle of Tovaritch, opened it with an unnatural flick of his metal hand, and drank all seven hundred millilitres without surfacing for air. The rest of the wasted men at the table made juvenile noises and chanted.

The American said to Natasha, "He's had a lot of practice swallowing large quantities," while the Soldier was sucking down the bottle.

Natasha thought of all the ways she could kill this man.

"Can you get high?" the American said to the Soldier.

"Many substances impair my functioning," the Soldier said.

"Draw him ten lines," the American told the men at the table.

Two of them got to work creating ten precise, clean lines of fine, white powder on a bit of glass. When the work was done, the glass was passed to the American.

He said, "Would you care to do a line, Black Widow?"

"I'm still working on this" — she shook her cocktail — "but I'll let you know when I'm ready for something else."

"Sounds good," said the American. He placed the glass in front of the Soldier and places an improvised tube beside the glass. "Snort."

The Soldier took the tube and snorted each line in quick succession. His eyes were running when he finally lifted his head away from the board. The men cheered and laughed again. It was a game to them, handing over toxic concoctions for the Soldier to drink. Natasha sat on each of the men's lap in turn, spiking their drinks until all of them were dopier than they'd ever been in their life.

"Come with me," she said to the Soldier once the men were too far gone to notice, care, or remember.

The drugs were affecting him by then, but he was able to walk steadily after her. The training room was their destination. They made it there unimpeded. They sat down on the mat with their backs to the mirror.

"Are you alright?" she said.

"Don't feel so great."

"Do you think throwing up will help get you over it faster?"

"Can you love?"

"What?"

"Can you love?"

"I don't understand what you're saying. I think you should make yourself throw up, OK? Here. Into this."

"Do you think you still — after all this _shit_ — have the capaci—" The Soldier vomited forcefully into the bin she'd placed in his lap.

Natasha pulled her hand away. Induction successful. His panting and retching was the only noise between them for a long time. Their silence was interrupted by the training doors opening and Yelena bouncing in.

" _There_ you are. They're asking for y— . . . What's wrong with _him_?"

Natasha rubbed the Soldier's back when he retched again. To Yelena, she said, "He was entertaining."

"Oh. Been there," Yelena said. "Wish you'd've been there to spirit _me_ away, Tasha."

"Can't be everywhere."

"No, you can't. So, what? Am I interrupting a date or something?"

"No," Natasha said, "just our peace and quiet. Can't a girl watch a guy vomit in peace around here?"

"Not since the fifties." Yelena smiled and sat on the open side of the Soldier.

He groaned. Natasha tensed when he pulled his head out of the bin and dropped it on her shoulder. "I wanna stay here with you guys."

"You _wanna_?" said Yelena.

"Uh huh," the Soldier said. "Don't wanna go back and forget it all. Don't wanna go back to missions and hurting. Just wanna stay here with you, Natalia."

"I hate to break it to you," Natasha said, "but I'm not going to be staying here for long."

"Then take me with you when you leave."

Yelena laughed under her breath.

"I think your handlers would demand a steeper price than I could afford to take you off their hands."

"Fuck my handlers. Fuck yours, too."

Yelena said, "Actually, _they_ fuck _us_."

The Soldier giggled on Natasha's shoulder. Actually _giggled_. "That's true," he said.

He vomited twice more in the span of seven minutes.

Yelena said, "I thought you were supposed to be above this sort of thing."

The Soldier said over his bin, "Body does whatever's quickest to get rid of poisons and re-establish equilibrium."

"So, vomit?"

"And metabolise it as fast as possible." He put his head back on Natasha's shoulder. His hair was sweaty. "They've gotten me really, really high before, but it only lasted about five minutes before the body started fighting back."

"Must've been a very intense five minutes," Yelena said drily.

"Dunno." The Soldier slurred a little when he said it. "Don't remember." There was a pause in which none of them felt the need to talk. The Soldier said, "It's weird, though, what I remember and what I don't." The tone of voice seemed to imply that he was talking mostly to himself.

"About what?" Natasha said.

"Everything. I remember learning Russian, but I don't remember what I was speaking before then. Remember being taught how to use some things but not others. Don't know why I just _know_ some things, but other things I remember being taught to me."

"English," Natasha said.

"Huh?"

"You spoke English before you spoke Russian. You're American."

"How do you know?" His lead lifted off her shoulder and he stared at her with wide, child-like eyes. "How do you know it's American and not British? Not Canadian or Australian and all the others?"

"A person just knows," said Yelena.

Natasha nodded at the Soldier. "Your gestures and pattern of speech. You _sound_ like an American speaking Russian."

"You do it well," said Yelena, "you have the right accent and everything. Anyone not in this building wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But we literally _teach_ this, how to pass as a native speaker when you're not a native speaker."

"I'm American," the Soldier whispered. 

In the end, Natasha and Yelena got him back to his quarters before he passed out.

* * *

_The floorboards were cold under her toes, but that wasn't enough to stop her moving. Natasha gathered up her Glocks and the socks she'd left on the heating vent (which she had never turned on). All these weights hanging off of her made it easier to move. Move she did._

* * *

The next day she went for him. There was never any doubt that she was going to go to him. She was the Black Widow now. She could go wherever she pleased, no questions asked. Missions were hers to choose. Partners were, too.

The Soldier wasn't in his cell. It was empty. It was clean, as if there hadn't been a man living in it for months on end. Where had he gone? Not to the infirmary; she'd already checked. His handlers were still here talking with Bezukhov, so the Soldier couldn't have left yet. Natasha scoured the level until she found what she was looking for.

Set up in one of the cold rooms was a most curious-looking chair with an apparatus strung up around it. Natasha had seen devices similar to it, though never this model exactly. They'd done some experimentation on all the girls in chairs like this, stirring up brains and memories they didn't know they had.

This room was abandoned except for the Soldier sitting in the chair. The thing reclined, but he was sitting upright. Natasha stared at the bodysuit he was wearing. It looked like something a person would wear while being tested, so that their body could be monitored. Natasha walked into the room. Confusion stained the air. He was watching her with the oddest expression.

"Soldier," she said.

He blinked. Perhaps it was him coming to attention, but he didn't do anything besides that. Up close, she could see red marks on his face. If she didn't know any better, she'd say they were half-healed burns.

"Come with me," she said. "Let's spar."

That stupid look was back on his face. That moon-faced kid expression. The Soldier looked fascinated as he stared at her face. But it also looked like there was something bothering him. A high-pitched ringing in the room or a fly that he couldn't pin down. Slowly — full of hesitation — the Soldier reached his hand out toward Natasha's face. The motion stuttered and paused, but he reached for her and brushed his thumb along her bottom lip. The hand withdrew much quicker than it had arrived. The Soldier stared at his thumb, cautious. He glanced at her and then looked away.

"Soldier," she said.

He brushed his thumb along his own lip.

"Come spar with me," she said while successfully keeping the urgency out of her voice.

The Soldier spoke to his lap, "Can't. Standing orders to wait here."

"Wait for what?" she said.

A sad little smile crested his face. "I don't know."

* * *

_Natasha had been all over the world. She had done all manner of things, some good and kind, but most were decidedly vile. As Black Widow, she could choose her own missions and partners. Perhaps she should have been more selective. The things she'd done for the promise of information. They'd tell her they didn't know themselves, but they knew a guy who'd worked with the Winter Soldier; they'd give her a point of contact if she did something for them first. Natasha hadn't cared what it was they wanted her to do. She_ needed _that point of contact. Any hope was enough. Even if, by the second year, she knew it would turn out to be nothing, just like all the rest, Natasha took the job._

_Stupid of her. The whole thing was stupid. More than once she'd thought of going back to the Red Room and asking them to take the Soldier out of her head. But she never did it. Latvia was the last straw, though. This was the end of it for her. No more chasing things she couldn't have._

_Why did she want to find him so badly anyway? She hated what this desire to find him had driven her to do. Reckless carnage strewn across half the globe in exchange for the promise of finding a ghost. But not anymore._

* * *

She didn't relapse and pick up the search after he shot her in Odessa.

* * *

_After three years of searching, she broke that piece off and moved on._

* * *

"It must be weird to see all of your things encased in glass like this," Natasha said to Steve.

"Yeah," he said.

They walked through the empty museum exhibit side by side. The videos were flickering from the smaller displays, but all of the the audio was off. Murals stared down at them, those giants painted on the walls. Natasha could still hear the music from the party; they were celebrating the grand opening of the Captain America exhibit. It would be opened to the public tomorrow. Tonight, it was a private affair for friends of the museum and friends of Steve.

Rather, _colleagues_ of Steve. All of his true friends were entombed in this very exhibit.

Natasha was honoured to be here with Steve. He'd never spoken much of his life before waking up. Not his actual life. Not his friends and what he had liked to do to kill time between missions. Natasha hadn't been blind to the way Steve had looked at them while they had fought those aliens in New York. He'd looked at them during the battle and wanted to be seeing someone else.

So this, the museum, was significant. Asking her to walk it with him was significant.

She remembered the day the Smithsonian had contacted Steve to get his blessing for the exhibit. It had been cautious enthusiasm on Steve's face. He took an active role in procuring pieces. His advice was taken into consideration. Natasha knew for a fact that the exhibit was supposed to be more _Captain America_ than _Howling Commandos_ , but it had ended up including a display dedicated to each other the other six men. She'd been there while Steve sat with an artist and historian, telling them down to the last detail what the Howling Commandos uniforms looked like and what they were made of.

In front of the mannequins wearing those uniforms (at least one of those uniforms wasn't original; it was just an imitation), Steve said, "There'd be no reason for any of this if it wasn't for them."

If Steve could go back in time, he would. Natasha had no doubt.

She said, "They missed you just as much as you miss them."

They went around the showroom. Steve talked more and more. Each item and picture elicited a few words from him. Some things inspired Steve to tell Natasha an entire story, beginning to end. She met each of the Howling Commandos as Steve took her around their displays.

Steve had a lot to say about James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, but he didn't give voice to a lot of them. Natasha had a lot to say about him, too, but she kept her silence.

He was lost to both of them, swallowed by the folds of time, waiting.


End file.
